Mrs. North’s tennis party pursued its usual successful career in the
brilliant sunshine, which, as Mr. Fothersley remembered, always favoured
her. Fred Riversley had brought an unexpected carload of R. A. F. boys
down from London with him. This made a tournament possible, as Mrs.
North saw at once. They drew partners with much fun and laughter. Mr.
Fothersley telephoned to Fairbridge for a selection of prizes to be sent
out by the 4.30 bus. It was one of the charming sort of things which Mr.
Fothersley did. It was more particularly nice of him on this particular
afternoon than usual, because, so far as Mr. Fothersley was concerned,
Mr. Pithey was making it almost unbearable.
He was a large, flat, pale yellow gentleman, with a peculiarly
penetrating metallic voice. He had a very long nose, with a broad tip
curving upwards, and small keen eyes which darted everywhere. Without
the slightest hesitation he took the place which from time immemorial
belonged to Mr. Fothersley at all Mentmore parties. Under the
beech-tree, where by all the rights of precedence Mr. Fothersley should
have led the conversation, Mr. Pithey’s metallic voice held sway and
drove all before it. In the usual walk round the garden, always
personally conducted by Mr. Fothersley and his hostess, Mr. Pithey laid
down the correct lines on which to bed out, to grow carnations, to keep
down weeds, or anything else that cropped up. When Mr. Fothersley drew
attention to the fact that on any of the courts the final of the
hard-fought set was in progress, it was Mr. Pithey’s voice that drowned
all others as he shouted “Well played!” and gave advice to all
concerned. In fact, Mr. Pithey dominated the party.
Mrs. Pithy, a small blue-faced lady, very expensively dressed, sat in a
comfortable basket chair with her feet on a stool and, unless actually
asked a question, she spoke to no one except her husband, whom she
always addressed by name. Bertie when she remembered, ’Erb when she
forgot.
Even the arrival of Lady Condor, undoubtedly the personage of the place,
made no impression on this strange couple’s evident conviction that they
were people of supreme importance in the universe. Lady Condor could
have put the Old Gentleman himself in his place if the mood were on her,
but on this occasion, as it happened, she was frankly and evidently
entertained by the Pitheys. Mr. Fothersley regretted it. Seldom had he
looked out more anxiously for the arrival of her wheeled chair
surrounded by its usual escort of five white West Highlanders. Lady
Condor always used her chair, in preference to her car, for short
journeys, so that her dogs also might have an outing. Seldom had he been
more disappointed in her, and Lady Condor was given to amazing
surprises. This was certainly one of them. Solemnly, and as far as was
possible in his manner conveying the honour being conferred on him, Mr.
Fothersley led Mr. Pithey to Lady Condor’s chair, so soon as she had
been ensconced by her hostess in a comfortable and shady spot near the
tea-tables and with a good view of the tennis. Not that she ever looked
at it for more than a second at a time, she was always too busy talking,
but it was _de rigueur_ that she should have the best place at any
entertainment.
Mrs. Pithey, for the moment, it was impossible to introduce, as it would
plainly not occur to her to leave her chair until she had finished her
tea for anybody, except, possibly, Mr. Pithey.
Mr. Fothersley effected Mr. Pithey’s introduction admirably. The
delicate shade of deference in his own manner left nothing to be
desired.
“May I be allowed to present Mr. Pithey, dear Lady Condor?” he asked,
deftly bringing that gentleman’s large pale presence into her line of
vision.
“Ah—how-d’ye-do? No, don’t trouble to shake hands.” She waved away a
large approach. “You can’t get at me for the dogs. And where are my
glasses? Arthur, I have dropped them somewhere. Could it have been in
the drive? No, I had them since. What! on my lap? Oh yes—thank you very
much.”
She put them on and looked at Mr. Pithey, and Mr. Pithey looked at her.
“Pleased to meet you,” he said. “Do you always take a pack of dogs about
with you?” Plainly Mr. Pithey disapproved. Jock and Jinny, father and
mother of the family, were moving in an unfriendly manner round his
feet. “Just call them off, will you?”
Mr. Fothersley awaited the swift and complete annihilation of Mr.
Pithey. It was a matter of doubt if even Lady Condor could have
accomplished it; at any rate, she made no attempt. She continued to look
at him with what might almost be described as appreciation in her shrewd
eyes under their heavy lids. Only she did not call the dogs off.
And then, to an amazed company of the Mentmore élite, she gave Mr.
Pithey her whole and undivided attention for the space of nearly half an
hour.
Mr. Pithey gave his opinion as it was always apparently his pride and
pleasure to do, on many and various things.
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,” might have served for
the text of Mr. Pithey’s conversation.
“Who’s been at the head of affairs in this village _I_ don’t know,” he
said largely, “but more rotten management, more want of enterprise, more
lack of ordinary sense, I’ve never come across. Why, you see it
everywhere! Here’s the whole place without any light, unless you call
lamps and candles light, and a stream running through the place. Water
power at your doors, by Jingo! And money in it too, or I shouldn’t be
taking it up. Ever been in Germany?” He gulped down his third cup of
tea, and looked around at his now more or less interested audience.
“Well, they’ve got electric light in every potty little village you go
to, got it there still at this minute, and”—Mr. Pithey laid a large
yellow hand on Lady Condor’s knee—“_cheaper_ than you can get it over
here.”
“One really can’t believe it!” exclaimed Mrs. North. “Surely it’s not
possible!”
“Everything is possible,” said Lady Condor, curiously examining Mr.
Pithey’s hand through her glasses.
“I was over there, staying near Cologne on business last week,” returned
Mr. Pithey impressively. “So I ought to know. And when you know me
better, Mrs. North”—Mr. Fothersley’s shudder was almost audible—“you’ll
know I don’t talk without my book. I got nails over there—metal, mind
you—cheaper than you can get ’em here. P’rhaps you won’t credit that!”
He helped himself to more cake, and started afresh.
“Now look at the farming round about here. Rotten, that’s what it is,
rotten! Never went in for it myself before, but I know when a concern’s
run as it should be or not. There’s only one farm in this district
that’s real tip-top, and that’s Thorpe. It’s a little bit of a place,
but it’s well run. Run by a woman too! But she’s a fool. If you’ll
believe me, I offered her a twenty-five per cent. profit on whatever the
price she gave for that little place, and she wouldn’t take it. Just
have suited me to play with. And there’s one or two things there I’d
like up at the Court. By the way, any gentleman or lady here got some of
those old lead water tanks they’d like a fancy price for, because I’m a
buyer.”
By this time the assembly under the beech-tree was more or less
paralysed, and Mrs. North was wondering what madness had possessed her
to be the first to ask Mr. Pithey to meet Lady Condor. But Lady Condor
continued to beam; not only to beam, but every now and then to break
into a chuckle. And yet this was not at all the sort of thing one would
have expected to amuse her.
“Old lead water tanks!” she repeated, thoughtfully. “Dear Arthur, would
you mind putting Jock on my lap? Thank you so much. And now Jinny!
There, darlings! Don’t be nervous, Mr. Pithey. They never really _bite_
unless you come too close. Let me see, where were we? Oh—yes—tanks! No,
I am afraid I have none for sale just now.”
“You see,” said Mr. Pithey confidentially, “if I get the stuff off some
of you old inhabitants I know it’s the right sort, and I don’t mind what
I pay.”
“If you go on talking much longer, Bertie, you’ll be late for seeing the
man who’s coming about the butler’s place,” said Mrs. Pithey, suddenly,
from her chair. She had just finished her tea, and swept many crumbs
from her lap as she spoke.
“Quite right, my dear! Quite right!” Mr. Pithey rose as he spoke. “I’m
never late for an appointment, Mrs. North. Matter of conscience with me,
never mind who it’s with, butler or duke.” It was characteristic of Mr.
Pithey that he put the butler first. “Well, good-by to you all.” Mr.
Pithey shook hands largely all round, followed by Mrs. Pithey. “Pleased
to have met your Ladyship. Sorry not to have seen your good husband,
Mrs. North. _The_ man in this place, I reckon. That margarine business
of his is one of the best managed in Leicester, and we don’t let flies
walk on us there, anyhow. He goes in for a bit of science and writing as
well, doesn’t he? Good all round man, eh?”
And, conscious of having been generally pleasant, Mr. Pithey removed his
large pale presence to where his Rolls-Royce car awaited him in the
front drive.
“I know you will forgive me, dear lady,” said Mr. Fothersley, his voice
trembling with emotion, “if I do not see them off.”
“Indeed, yes!” exclaimed Mrs. North. The allusion to the margarine
factory had made her hot all over. “What perfectly hateful people! He
did nothing but talk, and she did nothing but eat!”
Lady Condor arose briskly from her chair, scattering West Highlanders
around her.
“Where is Roger?” she demanded. “I am going to be really clever if I can
only concentrate sufficiently to say what I mean. Don’t distract my
thoughts, any of you! But I must have Roger! He is the only really
brainy one among us—at least, I mean he is the only one who’s used his
brains. I have naturally a very good brain, but it is rusty from want of
use. All our brains are rusty. But what is it I want? Oh yes—Roger. In
his study, my dear? Let us all go—yes. Where are my glasses, and my
gloves? Please put them in your pocket until I go, Arthur. I cannot
afford to lose them as I used to do. Down, children! down!”
She took Mrs. North’s arm, and with Mr. Fothersley on her other hand and
the dogs in full chorus, started across the lawn toward the house.
“Well played, Violet! well played! The child’s as good as ever at it.
But where were we going? Oh yes—I must have Roger. We will surprise him
through the window. He will be very cross, but he won’t say anything
because it’s me. Ah—but there he is——”
North’s long figure came out into the sunlight, and as he approached the
group he had much the air of a big schoolboy who had been playing
truant.
“I apologize profusely,” he said. “My intentions were of the very best.
I intended to come out to tea, but I happened on Mr. Pithey in the hall,
where he was endeavouring to purchase Mansfield——”
There was a chorus of exclamations.
“Well, he was asking Mansfield to recommend him a good butler for a
gentleman’s establishment. Salary no object, if man satisfactory. I
confess I ran away. Lady Condor, if you will drink another cup of tea I
should love to fetch it for you, but it is plainly not my fault if you
will encourage my wife to entertain these people.”
“You would never entertain anybody if you had your own way,” said his
wife.
“I would always entertain Lady Condor. Or rather, I am always sure Lady
Condor will entertain me.”
“Well, I am delighted with Mr. Pithey,” announced Lady Condor,
reoccupying her chair, and enjoying the sensation she created. “Yes. In
Mr. Pithey I see our—now what is the word I want?—oh yes—our avenger!
The people have dethroned Us. They are taxing Us out of existence.
Condor told me this morning he must put the Cleve estate into the
market. I shall be lucky if I keep my diamonds, and poor Hawkhurst will
be lucky if he and his wife don’t end in the workhouse. But where was I?
I had got it all in my head just now. If only I could write it all down
directly I think of it, I could make my fortune as a writer of leaders
in a daily paper. Yes. They have dethroned Us, and they will get
Pitheys, dozens of Pitheys, instead. We shall be ruined, obsolete,
extinct, but we shall be revenged. They will get Pitheys in our place.
Heaven be praised! The old _nouveaux riches_ were bearable. They had
reverence, they recognized their limitations, they were prepared to be
taught. Look at you dear people, of course we have all known about the
margarine. And you, dear Nita, yours was wine—or was it mineral
water?—something to drink, wasn’t it? We needn’t hide anything now,
because the Pitheys will strip everything bare. If you dear things had
come here with 2½d. a year, and lived in a villa, we should never have
known you. And yet—yes, now I have it—yet really and truly, Roger was
the real aristocracy. The aristocracy of brains. The margarine and wine
didn’t matter, nor did the money—at least, I mean it ought not to have.
I’m getting terribly muddled! And where is my scarf? Did I drop it when
I got up? Oh, here it is. You see, We made the aristocracy of wealth. We
couldn’t resist the shoots in Scotland for the boys, and the balls for
the girls, and the snug directorships on big companies. Yes—we smirched
our position—our grandfathers and grandmothers would never have done it.
And now here we are positively being patronized—yes, dear
Arthur—patronized by Pitheys. I think I have gone off on to another
tack. It was losing my scarf! But I am delighted with Pithey. He will
avenge Us on the masses—Pithey the Avenger—yes. But I should have put it
much better if I could have said it while he was here. Arthur, do look
more cheerful! Think of Pithey as the avenger. It makes him so bearable.
And I will have that cup of tea, Roger!”
“I cannot laugh,” said Mr. Fothersley. His voice, even though addressing
Lady Condor, held a word of rebuke. “We should never have called! It
enrages me to think that we should have submitted to such—such——”
Words failed him. “However,” he added, “we have reason to be thankful we
did not call on the St. Ubes. I gathered to-day that the name, which
might easily have misled us, was originally _Stubbs_. I shall _not_
call. These Pithey people——”
Again words failed him, and Lady Condor chuckled.
“Mrs. Pithey disapproves of me,” she announced. “She is probably telling
Mr. Pithey that I paint. I must own it is very badly done to-day;
Mullins was in a temper. She always makes me up badly when she is in a
temper. Now do let us enjoy ourselves! Let us forget the Pithian
invasion. Thank you—and some cake—yes. And some one else must have some
tea to keep me company. Dear Nita—yes. The poor hostess never gets
enough tea. Now this is cosy. And where are my glasses? I have not
_looked_ at the tennis yet. And I know it is very good. And I have not
spoken to dear Violet, or to Fred. And there, why surely they are
playing together. Did they draw together? How strange! The child is
lovelier than ever. And now they have finished. Bring them to have tea
with me. What is Fred now? A major! Isn’t it too ridiculous? And I
suppose those little boys you have brought with you in R.A.F. uniforms
are Brigadier-Generals. And have you won the tournament, my dears?”
“No,” said Fred Riversley. He and Violet had shaken hands and had waited
till Lady Condor stopped for breath. “No. I played very badly. Even Vi
couldn’t pull me through.”
He was a fair heavily-built young man, and while the ladies talked, all
three seemingly at once, for Lady Condor rarely ceased, he sat down on
the grass and was at once the centre of attraction for the five dogs.
When a momentary pause occurred, he asked, “How’s Dudley?”
“Dudley,” said Lady Condor, “has got his aluminium leg. It is really too
wonderful. You’d never guess it wasn’t a real live leg—unless he tries
to run, which of course he mustn’t do. But everything else. And John, we
had letters from only yesterday. Russia—yes—and Heaven knows when we’ll
get him back. And where is your Harry? Why, it seems only yesterday he
was retrieving tennis balls in a sailor suit!”
“Harry is stuck at Marseilles,” said Riversley, “on his way to Egypt.
Doesn’t know what’s going to happen to him till Peace is signed.”
The little group fell on a sudden silence, a silence that the steady
thud of the tennis balls, the call of the scores, the applause, did not
touch. A shadow seemed to cross the sunbathed lawns and brilliant
flower-beds. There were others whom they all remembered, of whom no one
would ever ask for news again.
Riversley got up and carried the empty cups back to the tea-table. Then
he stood and watched the tennis for a little space.
His mind moved heavily, but he was conscious that, in spite of all the
momentum given by a great reaction, it would not be so easy as of old to
make a business of pleasure.
Presently he slipped away to the peace and seclusion of his
father-in-law’s study. It was a long low room, lined from floor to
ceiling with books. North’s writing-table stood in one window, the other
opened on to the lawn, while a further means of escape was afforded by a
second door at the end of the room opening into his laboratory. In the
great armchair guarding the hearth slept respectively Larry and
Victoria, the little lady fox-terrier who owned Roger North. Between Vic
and Larry there existed a curious compact, immovable apparently as the
laws of the Medes and Persians. Each had a share of the room on which
the other never encroached, and Larry possessed certain privileges,
plainly conceded by Victoria, with regard to North, beyond which he
never went. In all other matters the two were fast friends, and had been
so long before Larry came to live at Westwood. Lady Condor’s West
Highlanders they tolerated in the garden, but never in the house. Both
dogs greeted Riversley with effusion, and the heavy, silent young man
sat with Victoria on his knee and Larry at his feet, surrounding himself
with clouds of smoke and stroking the little sleek head against his arm.
Presently North joined him. “You are staying the night?” he asked,
accepting a proffered cigar.
“No.” Riversley emptied his pipe of ashes and began to refill it.
“I’ve made the excuse of business in London,” he went on after that
little pause. “I think Vi wants a change from—everything.”
There was another pause, but still North did not speak. He understood
this stolid and apparently rather ordinary young man better than most
people did. He knew the difficulty with which he spoke of things that
touched him deeply, things that really mattered. So he lit his cigar and
passed the light in silence, and presently Riversley went on again.
“You see, I still think Vi did the best thing she could, under the
circumstances, when she married me,” he said, “but even so it has not
been the success I hoped it would have been. There’s something wrong.
Something more than having to put up with me instead of a chap like old
Dick. It was a knock-down blow losing him, but Vi was damned plucky over
that, and it doesn’t account for——”
“What?” asked North, sharply this time, when the usual pause came.
“I don’t know,” answered Riversley, stolid as ever. “That’s what worries
me. I can’t put a name to it. But there’s something wrong. Vi’s altered,
and it isn’t for the better.”
“Altered?”
“Well, she looks at things differently—she’s lost—oh, I don’t know.”
“My dear fellow, can’t you be a little more explicit?”
“No. I’m a stupid sort of a fellow, or perhaps I’d understand better
what’s wrong. The only thing definite that I can lay hold of is, that
she gets sudden spasms of hatred, and it’s—well, it’s like looking into
a red-hot hell. I don’t know how else to describe it. She always had a
bit of a temper, you know, but this is different. And”—his voice dropped
a little and lost its steadiness for a moment—“the animals won’t go near
her sometimes.”
There was a queer strange silence for a minute across which the laughter
outside broke like a jangling wire.
“I expect she’s treated them unjustly,” said North, conscious even as he
spoke of the futility of his reason.
“Dogs never resent where they care,” said Riversley briefly. “It’s not
that. They—they are afraid of her for some reason, and it’s horribly
uncanny sometimes. I thought perhaps if she came down here without me,
had a rest from me you know, it would help her a bit.”
North nodded. “I think you are wise. I hope it’s only a passing phase.
She’s been through a stiff time, and we are none of us yet quite normal,
I fancy.”
“It isn’t as if she’d care for me,” Riversley went on steadily. “I took
my risk, and I’d take it again, and I’m not blaming her, mind you. And
I’m only telling you about it because she seems to hang on to you, and
you’ll be able to help her better if you know.”
“Yes, I understand that,” returned North. He felt, as a matter of fact,
particularly helpless. What Riversley had just told him, coupled with
Violet’s outburst to himself that afternoon, worried and disturbed him
not a little. He remembered those words of hers: “Sometimes I am
frightened.” The words overwrought, hysterical, long-strained, jumbled
in his mind and brought no comfort. Then suddenly, like a hand stretched
out to a stumbling man, came the thought of Thorpe, its radiant peace,
the steady eyes of Ruth Seer. And with that came the thought of Dick
Carey. He looked across at Riversley.
“There’s one thing I’d like to tell you,” he said, “and that is, Dick
wished Violet had chosen you instead of himself. He felt somehow that
you were really better suited to her.”
Riversley’s eyes met his in blank amazement. “Dick thought that?”
“He always felt he was too old for Vi. But she was desperately in love
with him, and he knew it, and you know old Dick. Besides, Vi could twist
almost any man round her little finger. But that he would have been glad
if her choice had fallen on you instead of himself, I have no doubt
whatever.”
Riversley stood up, filling his chest with a long breath. “Thank you for
telling me,” he said. “It’s a help.”
“There’s one other thing I’d like to say,” North went on, speaking
rather hurriedly, “and that is, see that you and Vi don’t get like
myself and her mother. Vi is like her in some ways, and though no doubt
I’ve been in fault too, and we were always wholly unsuited, yet we began
under better conditions than you have. And now we’ve got on each other’s
nerves so much that everything she says or does irritates me, and vice
versa. We _can’t_ get right now if we would. She thinks she’s fond of me
still, because it’s the correct thing to be fond of your husband, but
it’s far nearer hatred than love. And I—have no delusions. And for God’s
sake, my boy, keep clear of following in our footsteps.”
“We come of a different generation, sir,” said Riversley simply. “If we
can’t hit it off, we shall part. Only if there is trouble ahead for her,
and I am afraid there is, I’m right there.”
North looked at him with kindly eyes, but he sighed. He knew only too
well how the long years of misunderstanding, and irritability, and want
of give and take, can wear out what at first seemed such a wonderful and
indestructible thing.
“Roger! Roger!” shrilled his wife’s voice from the lawn. “Everyone is
going. Aren’t you coming to say good-bye?”
She flashed on their vision as she called, her face flushed with
indignation under her beflowered hat, her hands full of small boxes,
tissue paper and cotton wool.
“I really do think you might help a little! It looks so odd, and all my
friends think you peculiar enough already.”
Brought back with a shock to the deadly importance of the ordinary
routine, North became flippant. “You don’t mean to say they tell you
so?” he asked.
“It’s easy enough to guess what they must think, without any telling,”
retorted his wife. “At any rate, if you can’t behave with common
civility yourself, you might let Fred come and help me. Fred, I have
arranged for cold supper at 8.30. Will you come at once and look after
the friends you brought down, while Violet and I change. And don’t, I
beg you, for Violet’s sake, get into the same ways as her father.”
Riversley followed her meekly across the lawn. “I’m really awfully
sorry,” he apologized. “Is there anything else I can do?”
Then he stopped. His mother-in-law was immersed in a group of her guests
saying good-bye, and his eyes had found the figure they always sought.
Outside the front door, Lady Condor, her scarves, gloves, and glasses,
were all being packed carefully into her bath-chair, and a little way
down the drive was his wife. In front of her, just out of arm’s length,
were the little pack of West Highlanders, barking furiously. She stooped
down, coaxing them to come and be petted.
He progressed across the lawn towards her in his usual rather ponderous
fashion, and stood watching. All the light of the sun seemed for him to
centre round that slim white figure. It touched the smooth dark silk of
her hair with a crown of glory, and found no flaw in the clear pale
skin, the rose-red mouth. Those slender hands held out to the dogs, he
would have followed them to the end of the earth. He loved all of her,
with every thing he had or was.
Presently she gave up her hopeless efforts, and, standing to her full
height, looked at him across the still barking dogs.
“They have forgotten me, the little pigs!” she said. “They won’t even
let me pat them.”
But Riversley knew, even as dogs do not resent where they love, neither
do they forget.